(EST PUB DATE) MANAGING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: THE POLITICS OF LIMITED CHOICE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0001246284
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 46
• Document Creation Date: June 23, 2015
• Document Release Date: March 15, 2010
• Case Number: F-2005-01250
• Publication Date: December 1, 1975

Research Study
APPROVED FOR RELEASED
DATE: 03-02-2010
Managing Nuclear Proliferation:
The Politics of Limited Choice
t
OPR 408
December 1975
mom
 NATICIAL SECURITY INFORMAT;ON
Unauthorized Di iosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
NOFORN-
NOCONTRACT-
PROPIN-
USI BONLY-
ORCON-
Contractor/ C
Caution-Propriet
ly
This Information has been
Release to ...
to Foreign Nationals
to Contractors or
 CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
OFFICE OF POLITICAL RESEARCH
m
MANAGING. NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION:
THE POLITICS OF LIMITED CHOICE
 NOTE . . . . . . . . . . .
SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
I. FURTHER PROLIFERATION SEEMS INEVITABLE . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
Diffusion of Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
Commercial Competition Among Exporters . . . . . . . . .
10
The Political Incentives to Proliferation . . . . . . . . .
12
14 M
The NPT I s Questionable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Safeguards Are Weakening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
II. THE MANY FORMS OF PROLIFERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19
Further Complicating Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27
1 1 1 . THE SPECIAL CASES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
Nuclear Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
31
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
32
IV. MANAGING PROLIFERATION; LiMITED OPPORTUNITIES . . . . . . . .
33
V. PROSPECTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
 The purpose of this paper is, first, to examine the political
and technological forces underlying the dynamics of nuclear pro-
liferation (both horizontal proliferation -- more countries with
some nuclear capability, and vertical proliferation -- the advance,
through definable stages, to increasingly sophisticated nuclear
capabilities). And then, to survey the avenues open to the Great
Powers if one or more wish to limit and contain the process of
proMeration.
The discussion is based on two underlying assumptions which
constitute its basic parameters: that nuclear proliferation,
in its current stage at least, is largely a political phenomenon
and as such is strongly influenced by the growing atmosphere of
confrontation between the developed and less-developed countries;
and secondly, that, while nuclear proliferation is uniformly un-
desirable, some of its potential aspects are considerably more
dangerous and more avoidable than others.
This analytical essay was prepared by the Office of
Political Research. It was discussed with representatives
of other interested offices in CIA but was not formally
coordinated. It does not represent an official CIA position
on this topic. While the author is no longer with this
office, questions or comments on this paper are welcome.
They may be directed to code 143, ext. 5441.
 SUMMARY
During the past decade nuclear politics between developed
and developing states have been guided by the premise that civilian
nuclear energy resources could be distributed around the globe
while military nuclear resources were restricted to a small group
of major powers. This assumption is now being challenged as
rapidly as the civilian/military distinction in nuclear resources
is fading. It seems unlikely that or any major power can prevent
the emergence of more nuclear explosives states because:
-- the requisite materials and technology are already
too widely available for technical safeguards and
international regulations to be effective.
-- competition among the nuclear supplier states
guarantees threshold states that diverting and
diversifying power programs into explosives
programs will not deny them a source of nuclear
materials or technology.
-- legal restraints on pro iteration have lost much
of their effectiveness because of the growing
political confrontation between industrialized
and less developed countries.
 -- political pressures against proliferation only
tend to confirm the view that the nuclear-haves are
trying to deny all other countries a valuable prize.
Once a state crosses the threshold of nuclear explosives it
faces numerous successive thresholds of weaponization and delivery
ranging from crude bombs to sophisticated packaging, aircraft de-
livery, and various levels of missile delivery systems. The price
in terms of economic, technological and security considerations --
than producing a test nuclear explosion. Many of the states which
acquire explosives may not choose or be able to cross these successive
thresholds. Thus, it may prove more feasible and more important to
discourage or delay states from advancing across these thresholds by decreasing technological opportunities and political incentives --
than to prevent them from acquiring explosives.
The future is, therefore, likely to be characterized not only
by an increased number but also an increased diversity of nuclear
actors. These will include nuclear superpowers, regional nuclear
powers, nuclear abstainers, closet nuclear powers, nuclear explosives
powers, and, possibly, nuclear terrorists.
The more states that stop at the explosive stage the greater
the prospects that the proliferation process will not seriously
 alter international power relations. The best hope for rrenagina
nuclear proliferation is that most of the new nuclear explosives
states may be persuaded that weaponization is insufficiently valuable
or too costly to warrant embarking on a full weaporiza+lon program.
The most dangerous prospect for future proliferation would be a con-
dition of high political incentives and high technical opportunity
when today's threshold states are tomorrow's nuclear explosives
powers and must determine whether they will move to full delivery
systems. The ccrr,ing decade of nuclear politics wound then result
in moving the ante up fr(,m nuclear explosives to effective nuclear
weapons.
IN
 1. FURTHER PROLIFERATION SEEMS INEVITABLE
The process of nuclear proliferation began when the US
lost its nuclear monopoly in 1949 and would logically and conclusively
be completed only when all political actors, state and non-state,
are equipped with nuclear armaments. The proliferation process
involves not only acquisition,of nuclear military resources by
additional actors, but also readjustments by the international
community; each new nuclear power in some way redefines the equa-
tions of international influence. Although nuclear weapons have
not been used militarily since 1945, they have been in continuous
passive, political use -- it is, in fact, the value of their political
use which seems to be the primary incentive to the current class
of nuclear threshold states to acquire nuclear status.
Acquisition of nuclear explosives promotes a staters position
relative to allies and rivals, increases its international Influence,
and alters its self-image. Even when there is no threat of military
use of the new nuclear resources, their political impact upon other
states is a source of instabi:.;ty until initial reactions and readjust-
ments are completed. Domestically, the emergent nuclear powe,- requires
time to get used to living with what It has built, and to form a
consensus on the use and development of its new resource.
 Thus far in the proliferation process, the emergence
of new nuclear powers has been gradual and widely anticipated.
This in turn has allowed time for the international system to
adapt to their presence. The first four nuclear initiates were
also established powers reinforcing their status rather than LDCs
attemp'Ing to augment their influence. From 1945 to 1964 -- what
may come to be known as the first phase of nuclear proliferation
-- the process was held to a stately pace. Four years passed between
Nagasaki/Hiroshima and the Soviet Union's first nuclear test in
1949. Britain became the third nuclear power in 1952 and another
eight years pa!~sad before France became the fourth in 1960. Another
four years passed before China made its nuclear debut in 1964.
An apparent plateau in the proliferation pr^cess was
established -- an equilibrium period when there seamed to be
no more states with both the political incentive and the technical
opportunity to advance to nuclear status. Each of the major powers
and victors of World War II had acquirid nuclear weapons. Ail
the cther technically advanced states capable of developing their
own nuclear armaments lacked incentive. The former major Axis
powers, Japan and Germany, were disqualified by historical, domestic,
and international restraints. Canada, Sweden, and Italy preferred
 the roles of nuclear abstainers. Israel also gave the appearance of
abstaining for hoth political and technical reasons.*
India's detonation of a nuclear device in 1974 ended
this equilibrium and probably initiated a second phase of nuclear
proliferation, a phase quite distinct in pace and variety of nuclear
actors. The Indian experience illustrates the technological and
the political reasons why further nuclear proliferation seems in-
evitable.
Diffusion of Technology
Fifty states now have some kind of civilian nuclear
power installation. They fall, however, into a number of very
different categories: nuclear superpowers (the US, USSR, China,
etc.), nuclear explosive states (India); nuclear abstainers (those
who have the means and the technology to go nuclear but have not
decided to do so such as Canada, Japan, and Sweden); nuclear thres-
hold states (countries considered likely to be able and willing
to explode test devices within a relatively few years like Taiwan
9razil, Iran); and Israel which prefers to maintain an ambiguous
nuclear military status.
Thirty years after Big Boy and Fat Man were developed
in great secrecy, their technology is no longer secret. And after
 N
fifteen years of an expanding nuclear power industry which uses
and produces enriched uranium and plutonium, these are no longer
rare or unattainable elements. Moreover, the technological oppor-
tunity to cross the explosives threshold can only increase as
nuclear materials and know-how become ever more available and as
nuclear power installations continue to evolve towards similarity
with the technology needed to make nuclear explosives.
Even now, the technological distance between power
plants and explosives is so short that many threshold states are
at approximately the same lead-time from the capacity to make ex-
plosive devices. There is considerable danger that they might be
drawn into an accelerating competition to be among the earliest to
Lead-times are primarily a function of the status of existing
national nuclear power industries and of the international availability
of nuclear technology. The technology of nuclear power industries is
expected to change over the next several years. Most of the expected
developments would bring nuclear power technology closer to the thres-
hold of nuclear explosives technology. The international availability
of nuclear technology should also be expected to increase over the
next several years, despite the efforts of supplier states to restrict
their exports of nuclear technology which could be applied toward
? _S
 explosives programs. Thus, the lead-time for an oil-rich state
such as Libya, which has nv established nuclear power industry,
but almost unlimited funds for purchases, might also be expected
to shrink over the next few'years.*
Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil,
Libya, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, and Spain, constituto the current
class of threshold states and each could conceivably graduate to
nuclear explosives by or before 1985. This is a highly diverse
group, ranging from Taiwan which has a complete nuclear power industry
and highly trained nuclear physicists to Libya which has neither, but
may have the resources and the political commitment to acquire both
very quickly. All, however, possess the potential, and pcssibly the
incentives, to cross the explosives threshold within the .